original to:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2011/feb/10/egypt-miracle-tahrir-square?CMP=twt_gu
bwo iac2009 list/ Marek T.
For Egypt, this is the miracle of Tahrir Square
There is no room for compromise. Either the entire Mubarak edifice
falls, or the uprising is betrayed
Slavoj Zizek
One cannot but note the "miraculous" nature of the events in Egypt:
something has happened that few predicted, violating the experts'
opinions, as if the uprising was not simply the result of social
causes but the intervention of a mysterious agency that we can call,
in a Platonic way, the eternal idea of freedom, justice and dignity.
The uprising was universal: it was immediately possible for all of us
around the world to identify with it, to recognise what it was about,
without any need for cultural analysis of the features of Egyptian
society. In contrast to Iran's Khomeini revolution (where leftists had
to smuggle their message into the predominantly Islamist frame), here
the frame is clearly that of a universal secular call for freedom and
justice, so that the Muslim Brotherhood had to adopt the language of
secular demands.
The most sublime moment occurred when Muslims and Coptic Christians
engaged in common prayer on Cairo's Tahrir Square, chanting "We
are one!" ? providing the best answer to the sectarian religious
violence. Those neocons who criticise multiculturalism on behalf of
the universal values of freedom and democracy are now confronting
their moment of truth: you want universal freedom and democracy? This
is what people demand in Egypt, so why are the neocons uneasy? Is it
because the protesters in Egypt mention freedom and dignity in the
same breath as social and economic justice?
>From the start, the violence of the protesters has been purely
symbolic, an act of radical and collective civil disobedience. They
suspended the authority of the state ? it was not just an inner
liberation, but a social act of breaking chains of servitude. The
physical violence was done by the hired Mubarak thugs entering Tahrir
Square on horses and camels and beating people; the most protesters
did was defend themselves.
Although combative, the message of the protesters has not been one
of killing. The demand was for Mubarak to go, and thus open up the
space for freedom in Egypt, a freedom from which no one is excluded ?
the protesters' call to the army, and even the hated police, was not
"Death to you!", but "We are brothers! Join us!". This feature clearly
distinguishes an emancipatory demonstration from a rightwing populist
one: although the right's mobilisation proclaims the organic unity
of the people, it is a unity sustained by a call to annihilate the
designated enemy (Jews, traitors).
So where are we now? When an authoritarian regime approaches the final
crisis, its dissolution tends to follow two steps. Before its actual
collapse, a rupture takes place: all of a sudden people know that
the game is over, they are simply no longer afraid. It is not only
that the regime loses its legitimacy; its exercise of power itself
is perceived as an impotent panic reaction. We all know the classic
scene from cartoons: the cat reaches a precipice but goes on walking,
ignoring the fact that there is no ground under its feet; it starts to
fall only when it looks down and notices the abyss. When it loses its
authority, the regime is like a cat above the precipice: in order to
fall, it only has to be reminded to look down ?
In Shah of Shahs, a classic account of the Khomeini revolution,
Ryszard Kapuscinski located the precise moment of this rupture: at
a Tehran crossroads, a single demonstrator refused to budge when
a policeman shouted at him to move, and the embarrassed policeman
withdrew; within hours, all Tehran knew about this incident, and
although street fights went on for weeks, everyone somehow knew the
game was over.
Is something similar going on in Egypt? For a couple of days at
the beginning, it looked like Mubarak was already in the situation
of the proverbial cat. Then we saw a well-planned operation to
kidnap the revolution. The obscenity of this was breathtaking: the
new vice-president, Omar Suleiman, a former secret police chief
responsible for mass tortures, presented himself as the "human face"
of the regime, the person to oversee the transition to democracy.
Egypt's struggle of endurance is not a conflict of visions, it is the
conflict between a vision of freedom and a blind clinging to power
that uses all means possible ? terror, lack of food, simple tiredness,
bribery with raised salaries ? to squash the will to freedom.
When President Obama welcomed the uprising as a legitimate expression
of opinion that needs to be acknowledged by the government, the
confusion was total: the crowds in Cairo and Alexandria did not want
their demands to be acknowledged by the government, they denied the
very legitimacy of the government. They didn't want the Mubarak regime
as a partner in a dialogue, they wanted Mubarak to go. They didn't
simply want a new government that would listen to their opinion, they
wanted to reshape the entire state. They don't have an opinion, they
are the truth of the situation in Egypt. Mubarak understands this much
better than Obama: there is no room for compromise here, as there was
none when the Communist regimes were challenged in the late 1980s.
Either the entire Mubarak power edifice falls down, or the uprising is
co-opted and betrayed.
And what about the fear that, after the fall of Mubarak, the new
government will be hostile towards Israel? If the new government
is genuinely the expression of a people that proudly enjoys its
freedom, then there is nothing to fear: antisemitism can only grow in
conditions of despair and oppression. (A CNN report from an Egyptian
province showed how the government is spreading rumours there that the
organisers of the protests and foreign journalists were sent by the
Jews to weaken Egypt ? so much for Mubarak as a friend of the Jews.)
One of the cruellest ironies of the current situation is the west's
concern that the transition should proceed in a "lawful" way ? as if
Egypt had the rule of law until now. Are we already forgetting that,
for many long years, Egypt was in a permanent state of emergency?
Mubarak suspended the rule of law, keeping the entire country in
a state of political immobility, stifling genuine political life.
It makes sense that so many people on the streets of Cairo claim
that they now feel alive for the first time in their lives. Whatever
happens next, what is crucial is that this sense of "feeling alive" is
not buried by cynical realpolitik.
? Slavoj ?i?ek is co-editor of The Idea of Communism, published by
Verso Books.
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